Loveland Veterans Day: Celebrating our Veterans (video, audio clips)

To our veterans, we say: Thank you

By Jessica Benes Reporter-Herald Staff Writer

Posted:
11/10/2012 03:35:59 PM MST

Loveland veterans served in the Army, the Air Force, the Marines, the Navy. They guided in cargo planes with radar units, acted as flight engineers, served in intelligence, exchanged fire to protect their country and feared for their lives. These soldiers returned to the United States, some feeling like heroes, and some relieved to have it over with.

This country honors these men on Sunday because of their fight for the protection and freedom of our country. Here are a few of their stories. Click on the audio buttons to hear veterans share some of their experiences.

Carrol Blansit, 88, made a promise to God while bullets whizzed around him and German enemy troops surrounded his village in Belgium. He told God that if he got him out of this, he'd be a better person.

“I lied to him for 55 years, Blansit said. It wasn't until 1999 that Blansit decided to give his life to Jesus. Now, I'm ready to go meet him, he said.

Carrol Blansit said that he grew from a young man to an old man in the two years that he served during World War II.

He was drafted at the age of 18 and sworn in on Jan. 6, 1943.

John Transue, right, poses with fellow soldiers at boot camp.

Blansit was part of an anti-aircraft unit in the Army and was shipped to Glasgow, Scotland a couple months after the initial landing in Normandy. He eventually served under General George D. Patton throughout the war.

He remembers that on his mother's birthday, Dec. 22, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans cut U.S. troops off in a little town in Belgium. They had us completely surrounded, Blansit said. I thought I was going to die at the age of 20 because they weren't taking prisoners, he said. Then an infantry division pushed in and opened a gap in the German ranks, and the U.S. military in the little town escaped. I can still hear the bouncing bullets, he said.

That wasn't the only time his life was in someone else's hands. He was crossing a plowed field to take a shortcut when his ankle hit something. He looked down and saw that it was a trip wire hooked to two land mines.

It had rusted enough that it broke, he said. Otherwise it would have killed me or caused both my legs to be amputated.

On Veterans Day every year, Blansit looks up at his God and says thank you for getting him out of the war in one piece. He also prays for the veterans, those in service now, and our liberty.

A letter written by Charles Donaway: My World War II experience was somewhat different than other veterans in that, after enlisting in 1943 at the age of 17 and after finishing boot camp, I was assigned to the U.S. Marine War Dog outfit.

Scott Goshorn stands beside an airplane he flew on during the Vietnam War in 1963. He was part of 83 combat missions with the Air Force. He said that his airplane never returned without multiple bullet holes.
(
Special to the Reporter-Herald
)

Our outfit trained dogs for actual combat duty. The dogs we trained were Dobermans because of their high intelligence and trainability. These dogs were trained for sending messages to headquarters from the front lines, and to help their trainer locate the enemy.

My dog, Carlo, and I arrived in Guadalcanal in November of 1943. After the campaign on Guadalcanal, Carlo and I were sent to Pelelieu where Carlo was killed in the line of duty.

I was assigned another dog, King, and we served in the Okinawa campaign.

After the war, I was not allowed to bring King home because of his aggressive training and because of his loyalty to only me. I gladly served our country to help keep it free and would not hesitate to do so again were I 70 years younger.

Richard Weiler was an army infantry soldier in 1950-51 during the Korean War. One of their mission was to gain intelligence by locating the enemy and relaying information on positions and numbers. And try to get out alive, he said.

He enlisted because he thought he was between wars and didn't expect to get sent to Korea. I really blew that one, he said. He was right in the thick of it. After he got home, he rode with the mayor in a Memorial Day parade in Pennsylvania.That was a little different than Vietnam, he said. Car backfires still give him pause and he tries to keep a low profile.

Duane Stickler served in the Army during the Korean war in 1951. In one instance, the unit met up with soldiers from an English outpost while they were recovering a boat of food that had washed downstream. Stickler and one of the English soldiers went up on a hill to keep a lookout and the other soldier bet him that Stickler couldn't hit a rock on a distant hill.

I was a pretty good shot,” Stickler said. Bang, bang, I hit the thing. The English commander walked up and said, What's this shooting about?

The English soldier said, He's shooting at a fox hole. We saw something move. It's bound to be a fox.

And the commander said, lThis is a serious war. You're not to be shooting at bloody rabbits. Now get on down to the company.

Chastened, Stickler and his men headed back down the hill. Later the commander said, You Yanks have something to eat, and then get off back to your colony.

Letter from Don Walker: I had it very easy. I served in Texas, Ill., for North American Aerospace Defense Command in Michigan and five different location in Korea from March 1966 to February 1970.

Even though I was in the Air Force, I worked with Army medivacs at small airfields in Korea. The worst part of the entire four years was that the country made anyone in the military feel ashamed of serving.

The only time I wore my uniform was on duty and one was never sure of his safety. You were hated and people were not shy about expressing their hatred. It was definitely a different world than today for military people.

Scott Goshorn retired from the United States Air Force in 1988. He served as a flight engineer during the Vietnam war for a year in 1963.

He flew 83 combat missions from Saigon that year and said there wasn't a mission that the airplane didn't come back with multiple bullet holes.

For years, even Goshorn's children didn't know what his service had been like. He didn't talk about it much.

Goshorn sprayed agent orange during the missions, a herbicide to kill the vegetation that grew along roads and rivers. The Viet Cong, Vietnamese insurgents, would sneak in from the north hidden among the weeds. The orange herbicide was laid down to get rid of the cover the enemy hid in. Goshorn said he thanks God that he's still in good shape. The herbicide turned out to be hazardous to humans and many fellow soldiers died of cancer and other diseases associated with the chemical.

I was dressed in it, soaked in it, Goshorn said. I'm lucky to still be here.

Goshorn revised the process of loading the agent orange onto airplanes, reducing the time to 15 minutes, and was awarded an Air Force commendation medal later.

Bill Howes lived for several months with a roommate in a hole under an airstrip in Khe Sahn, Vietnam. He was one of three air force men acting as air traffic controllers to planes flying supplies in to 30,000 men. His radar unit was near the small underground bunker where he slept. We were under siege almost all the time, he said, especially when the Vietnamese knew they had a radar unit. They wanted to kill that contact to the outside world. The C-130 cargo planes wouldn't even land since the runway was so short. Soldiers pushed the supplies out on rollers, which parachuted to the ground.

One night, the Viet Cong, and north Vietnamese attacked the troops on the air strip.

Howes' commander called Howes and asked if he could get to the radar unit. A C-123 was trying to locate their position to drop flairs and illuminate the area so the soldiers could fight back. He managed to reach the radar unit and direct the plane to the air strip.

All of a sudden it was bright as day and we were able to see who was next to us, Howes said. A lot of people got killed that night.

William Zoller didn't tell anyone for about 10 years after he left the service that he was a veteran, until serving in Vietnam wasn't such a negative thing. There's been a lot of recognition now that I'm older, he said, but there really wasn't any when I was in my 20s and 30s.

Zoller enlisted because the feeling at the time was that if you were drafted, you would definitely go to Vietnam while if you enlisted, you might not.

He wasn't so lucky, and served with the U.S. Army in Vietnam from 1969-72.

After he finished his service in 1972, Zoller bought a home in Fort Collins and flew a flag that had flown over the unit base in Phu Bai, Vietnam. A couple of years later, the flag was stolen so he wrote a letter to the Fort Collins newspaper.

He said that a politician in the area — it might have been a Congressman — saw the letter and two weeks later, Zoller had a brand new flag given to him by the government. The flag had once flown over the White House. Zoller has retired the flag but still has it at home.

His short service in a war, like many other veterans, changed him for life. He hates the smell of diesel fuel and sharp noises. He doesn't like July 4 because the fireworks sound like mortars and rockets, which fell every night during his term overseas.

The ones that go pop, pop, pop are like machine gun fire, he said.

A letter written by Karlin Trupp: I enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1967 and served my country until 1969, when I left Vietnam and was honorably discharged.

Vietnam was a military action that was not favored by most Americans. But for those of us who served proudly, it was service for the country that we love and that we would give our lives for.

Coming home will always be my bittersweet memory. Not only did I leave fellow Marines behind in memory or still fighting, but because of the disenchantment of the war from the America that I pledged to serve with pride.

Now, 43 years later, I have been meeting with my fellow 3rd battalion 3rd Marines. I have renewed acquaintance with my platoon leader, Oliver North, and we all tell stories and we can smile, laugh, and above all, welcome each other home. Thank you, 3/3 Marines (Semper Fi) and to all Vietnam vets and all service people past, present and especially my father, my father-in-law and my son. God bless America!

Aaron Picker was on a normal tour of duty with the Navy, headed to the Persian Gulf in 2001, when they received word of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. “I happened to be in the right place at the wrong time, he said.

His ship changed course and was one of the first to respond to the incident and head for Afghanistan. As a electronics technician and nuclear operator, he himself didn't see much action. Pilots flew over Afghanistan on missions and reconnaissance, and Picker worked below deck in the control room and operated the reactor panel.

He left the military in 2002, because every time he came home, his young son didn't remember him, and he wanted more for his family.

Years later, he looks back and feels he made a sacrifice and is grateful for the experience.